On Wednesday, federal judge Andrea Wood heard arguments on a Motion to Compel Discovery on behalf of Jesus Alberto Lopez Gutierrez in a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) filed last month. After hearing from both sides Judge Wood determined she needed more time to rule on the Motion to Compel Discovery. The defendants have until February 4, 2020 to submit written arguments defending their position not to release ICE’s internal communications discussing Lopez-Gutierrez’s case. Family members were joined by organizers and youth from HANA Center, NAKASEC, the Illinois Coalition for Refugee and Immigrant Rights, and Organized Communities Against Deportations for a press conference after the hearing. 

Lopez-Gutierrez was detained in May 2019, traveling back to Chicago after a road trip with friends. Since his detention, the family and organizers with OCAD (Organized Communities Against Deportations) launched a public campaign asking for his immediate release. The youngest of three, Lopez-Gutierrez was born in Mexico and raised in Chicago, Illinois after arriving in the US in 2005. Lopez-Gutierrez was granted DACA in 2013.  According to his lawyers, under the law, ICE should have released him when they found out he is eligible for DACA. Lopez-Gutierrez has filed for a preliminary injunction which challenges ICE’s illegal rescission of key components of the DACA program. If this injunction is granted, ICE will no longer be able to ignore the DACA policy when it jails DACA recipients. The next court date is February 21, when Judge Andrea Wood will hear oral arguments on Lopez-Gutierrez’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction.